Gemmell, David – Morningstar

I had made a promise to Gareth, and I would keep it. Mace was dismissive of my talents as a warrior, but my skills lay in other directions. I did not see myself as essentially heroic. My fears were very great. But I learned at my father’s knee that a man is judged not by his words or by his principles, or even by his wit. He is judged by his actions.

How could I, Owen Odell the Angostin, speak out against evil if I did not stand against darkness?

A hand touched my shoulder and I turned to see Piercollo beside me. His face was grey, the bandage over his eye bloody.

‘I am sorry,’ I told him. ‘You have suffered terribly.’But I am alive, my friend, thanks to you. I will repay. Piercollo will stand with you, and with the Morningstar. We will make war upon these men of evil.’I seem to remember a cloud passing across the face of the sun at that moment, but probably it did not. The weight of that memory, even after all these years, is still great. For I knew that something of beauty had been lost to the world and I grieved for it.

From that day to the last battle, I never heard Piercollo sing again.

Mace returned towards dusk with fresh cuts of venison and we spent a second night in the cave. Piercollo’s fever had begun to pass, but he was still too weak to travel far.

We broiled the venison and ate well that night. Mace was in better humour and told us that he had seen hunting-parties of soldiers scouring the woods and forest tracks, but none had chanced upon our trail. There’s not a woodsman among them,’ he said.

Even so we kept watch that night, taking it in turns to sit just inside the cave-mouth watching the moonlit hills.

I took the last watch, relieving Wulf at around midnight, and sat wrapped in a blanket beneath the stars. It was a clear night, soundless, a cool breeze whispering across the cave entrance. The smell of damp grass was in the air and bats flew above me. An old badger with a twisted front paw moved out on to the hillside, his fur like silver thread, his gait clumsy. Yet he had great dignity as he slowly made his way down the slope.

At the bottom he paused, his snout lifting to scent the air. Suddenly his dignity fled and he scurried into the undergrowth. I was immediately tense, narrowing my eyes to scour the tree-line.

But I could see nothing.

Then a huge grey wolf came into sight, padding across the grass. He was followed by six more. Something small caught my eye, and I swung my gaze to see several rabbits near a half-buried boulder. The wolves ignored them.

This struck me as curious, but not threatening. Perhaps they had recently fed. Perhaps they had discovered the carcass of the deer slain by Mace.

On they came, straight towards the cave.

‘Mace!’ I called and he came awake instantly, as did Wulf. Both men gathered their bows and moved alongside me. I pointed to the pack no more than a hundred paces distant.

‘You woke me for wolves?’ snapped Mace.

‘Look at them,’ I said. ‘They are corning straight at us. No turning of heads, no interest in the rabbits.’Mace muttered some obscenity and moved back to the fire, blowing it to life and adding a thick, dry branch. The dead leaves caught instantly, flaring to life. Mace ran back to the entrance and stepped out on to the hillside. The wolves saw him and increased their speed.

Wulf notched an arrow to his bow. In the pale moonlight it shone like silver.

‘Get back, Mace!’ I yelled. ‘They are possessed!’Mace hurled the burning branch at the first grey beast. The brand hit the wolf in the face, the flames singeing the fur of its back, yet it ignored the fire and ran straight at him, leaping for his throat. An arrow from Wulf lanced into the beast’s chest and it slumped to the earth.

Mace drew his sword, cleaving it through the neck of a second wolf, but the remaining five were all around him now. Wulf killed another, then threw aside his bow and ran at the creatures. Pulling an arrow from the quiver he had left behind, I followed him. A huge wolf hurled itself at Mace, knocking him from his feet. Losing his grip on the sword, he made a grab for his dagger; he would have been too late, but I arrived alongside him and tapped the wolf with the shining arrow. It froze momentarily, then ran away across the hillside with tail between its legs. Two more charged in. Mace rolled to his knees to drive his dagger into the throat of the first, and I threw the arrow at the second. The point barely broke the skin of the beast but still the wolf, freed from the spell, loped away from us. The last of the creatures leapt at Wulf, sinking its fangs into his forearm. His shortsword plunged into the creature’s side, the blade piercing the heart. Its forelegs folded beneath it and it sank to the earth without a sound. Wulf tried to

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